The girlfriend glanced at the puncture technician with some hesitation, but the technician hesitated for a moment before forcing a smile: "It's really nothing. How about I give you my phone number? Just call me if you need any more nails."
Yi Heye knew he couldn't force people to do things against their will, and he didn't like being met with indifference. He didn't want to continue the conversation, so he got back on his bike.
Before leaving, his girlfriend stood there looking at Yi Heye with a hint of something in her eyes. Yi Heye turned around and glanced at her. After a long while, he finally let go of the handlebars and waved to show his business card.
“I didn’t say this before.” Yi Heye waved his hand and sent the electronic business card to the puncture technician and her girlfriend. “I work at the AI Administration Bureau and I’m quite familiar with the people in the security department. You can contact me if you need anything.”
Upon hearing this, the piercing technician's expression changed, and Yi Heye scoffed, knowing what she was worried about.
He raised his chin and pointed to the belt on her waist, which was hidden by her hoodie. The moment he saw her, Yi Heye knew what was hidden there: "Carrying a gun without permission is not within my jurisdiction."
Seeing the piercing technician's surprised and flustered look, Yi Heye didn't say anything more and rode away without looking back.
The hovercar behind him hesitated before taking off. Yi Heye faced the wind, recalling the scene from earlier, and frowned—he was a little angry. He had finally found a shop that he appreciated, but it had closed down.
He recalled the tattoo on the back of the piercing technician's neck, and his intuition told him that her escape was inextricably linked to Area E.
But Jian Yunxian told him to stop dwelling on the E area, because the truth he was looking for wasn't there.
—So who can I turn to if I want to get a nail installed in the future?
Because of this incident, Yi Heye was so depressed that he ate a lot that night. He went to a restaurant and ate the whole meal by himself.
He wondered if it was just his imagination, but everyone seemed to be in a rush for dinner tonight, as if they were in a hurry.
This kind of situation usually only occurs during group meetings after meals. Yi Heye glanced at the group notification, didn't see that a meeting was required, finally put down his chopsticks, and leaned forward with some doubt, asking Zhou Wenkai across from him, "Old Zhou, what are you guys rushing to do?"
Zhou Wenkai was slurping up the last noodle when he looked up and saw a face suddenly appear, startling him so much he almost choked.
Yi Heye reached out and pushed the water glass to his side, watched him drink it, and then stared into his eyes.
Zhou Wenkai originally wanted to brush it off, but he didn't expect that even after swallowing it down, Yi Heye was still staring at him expectantly, so he could only cough twice and say, "No, I'm going back to watch the game later."
Yi Heye narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Zhou Wenkai was most afraid of him staring at him like that, so he quickly wiped his mouth and ran away with Director Zhang from the next office.
In the blink of an eye, almost everyone in the restaurant had left. Yi Heye stood up nonchalantly, ignoring Director Li's glance from the window, and then quickly slipped out of the restaurant.
The group walked very fast, taking a roundabout route, as if they were deliberately trying to shake him off. Yi Heye's strong personality couldn't withstand such provocation, so he chased after them even faster.
Yi Heye kept a close eye on Director Li, while also guarding against someone surrounding him and forcibly taking him away, making the journey a thrilling one.
Finally, Yi Heye followed him to a rarely used, very secluded meeting room in the next building. Due to the need to maintain a safe distance, the meeting had already started when Yi Heye arrived.
He tossed the small surveillance robot he'd casually picked up from the equipment room onto the crack in the door. After quickly connecting to the network, the images captured by the robot in the conference room appeared on his screen.
On the left side of the screen is a photo of the robot from District E that Yi Heye captured, while on the right side is Song Zhouzhou's LOPO giving a remote conference report. The two antennas on her head almost knocked over the camera, which looked rather comical.
However, what she said made Yi Heye unable to laugh at all:
"My husband discovered network signals indicating interference from another party while he was hacking the robot's chip."
"It has been confirmed that the IP address of this model is located in area A, and is highly similar to the address of the previously captured SHEEP."
"In other words, if the address can be confirmed to be the same, this E-sector prison break is inextricably linked to SHEEP."
Author's Note:
Meow: Don't call me Meow Boss, call me Pot Boss.
Chapter 147 (Number 147)
Yi Heye stared at the images transmitted by the little robot, stunned for a long time before he could recover.
Inside the office, the attendees erupted in a predictable uproar—
"As expected, it's him again."
"Who else could it be but him?"
"Hey, you surnamed Sheep, please spare us! When will this ever end..."
Everyone seemed to have accepted that SHEEP was responsible for all the bad things. The entire conference room was filled with weary sighs, but there was no shock or surprise.
But Yi Heye felt extremely uncomfortable.
More than once, Yi Heye recalled one event after another, feeling extremely anxious—starting from Fang Chunyang's case, SHEEP had been in the eye of the storm, and to this day there was not a single direct piece of evidence to prove his innocence.
As Yi Heye thought about this, he suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. He believed he knew this guy better than his colleagues. There was no way SHEEP could have done these things. He had no reason or justification for doing them.
...But where is the evidence?
Because he helped me solve a case? Because I thought I knew his character? Or simply because I liked him?
Just as Yi Heye was feeling agitated, the meeting room door suddenly opened with a "whoosh." Inside, his irritable colleagues, who were just about to adjourn the meeting with curses, saw Yi Heye sitting cross-legged on the floor watching the monitor.
Both were startled. The colleague almost fell because he lost his balance. After swearing, he realized who was sitting on the ground and immediately choked up in panic.
He turned around and glanced at Director Li, looking bewildered. The old leader was taken aback when he saw Yi Heye sitting on the ground, and then sighed helplessly.
Yi Heye understood their meaning, frowned, clapped his hands, and stood up. Knowing there was nothing left to hide, he simply spoke his mind: "Why did you keep it from me?"
Seeing that Yi Heye didn't realize the problem was in Zone E, Director Li quickly changed the subject, coaxing the child: "How is it keeping it from you? Our leadership team is having a meeting, what are you doing getting involved, a field worker?"
Upon hearing this, Yi Heye thought it made sense and forgot how the group of people had been trying to avoid him in the cafeteria. He was naturally led astray by Director Li's line of thought.
He thought for a moment, then stopped pursuing the matter of concealment and instead asked, "What's the situation now? Is there evidence that the person was released by SHEEP? What about the previous cases? Have you found any evidence? When do you plan to go and arrest them?"
Director Li was a bit overwhelmed by his barrage of questions. Just as he was about to speak, he suddenly remembered something, his expression turned serious, and he changed what he hadn't said: "You don't need to worry about this matter."
Yi Heye was stunned for a long time before his eyes widened: "What do you mean? I'm the one who's handling the SHEEP case!"
The kindness on Director Li's face vanished. At this moment, his aura as a leader broke through all pretense, and a single, unyielding gaze was enough to make Yi Heye break out in a cold sweat.
“You should know what I mean. We follow the principle of recusal when investigating cases. I don’t need to point out your relationship with him in front of so many people, do I?” Director Li ignored Yi Heye’s increasingly ashen face and said coldly, “Besides, your personality is too unstable. The affairs of Area A are not for you to interfere with. I have my own arrangements for this part of the investigation.”
These few words were like a breakdancing in Yi Heye's minefield. The boy was so angry that he couldn't speak, and his eyes were red. It looked like he might not be able to catch his breath.
But Director Li didn't indulge him any longer. He simply pushed him aside from the doorway, then waved his hand behind him and said to the group of people huddled behind the door watching the commotion, "Get out of here, meeting adjourned!"
Yi Heye was furious. He clenched his fists and frantically tried to catch his breath by the door. His colleagues could tell he was about to explode, so they all ran away from him as if their lives depended on it.
Zhou Wenkai glanced back at Yi Heye, who was left standing there, then turned to look at Director Li: "...Are you doing this on purpose?"
At this moment, Director Li had already led a large group of people through the corridor, and could no longer see the furious young comrade behind him. The horrified expression on his face just now melted away immediately.
“Yes, given his personality, whether we allow it or not, he definitely won’t be able to resist investigating on his own,” Director Li said slowly. “We might as well provoke him and get him to shift his attention elsewhere.”
The entire department held a meeting behind Yi Heye's back, not because they were afraid he would bring personal feelings into contact with SHEEP, but because they were worried he would stubbornly insist on investigating the E area. Director Li's words directly shifted the focus, allowing him to concentrate his energy on the arrest of SHEEP, and the equally enigmatic A area, just like E area.
“But Area A isn’t a place he should be going either, is it?” Zhou Wenkai asked.
“It was true before, but it’s different now, Wen Kai,” Director Li said. “Now the truth of so many cases is hidden behind that wall. We need someone who can find the breakthrough to tear down that wall. I think no one is more suitable than him.”
At this moment, Yi Heye stood trembling in the corridor—damn it, how could he possibly think he would act on his feelings for SHEEP?!
Yi Heye recalled several times when he had the ability to deal with him but still held back, and felt a little guilty—he couldn't rule out the possibility of acting on emotion, but even so, he still had a better chance of winning than all the hunters in the entire bureau, or even in the three districts.
There is no one but yourself who could possibly arrest SHEEP by any means or with any possibility!
He was so angry, but there was no one around to vent his anger on, so he had to swallow his rage.
—That wicked old man, I had just started to change my opinion of him a few days ago, and now he's finding new ways to annoy me.
The feeling of having nowhere to vent his anger was extremely uncomfortable. Yi Heye suspected that he would lose a year or two of his life because of it. He really didn't want to die young, so he quickly went to the training room with his belly full of anger.
He first ran two kilometers to warm up, then did three sets of reaction drills, and finally went to the shooting range and fired a hundred rounds of ammunition, releasing all his anger as kinetic energy. After that, he took a shower and finally felt much better.
When Yi Heye returned to his room, his anger had almost completely dissipated, leaving only the fatigue from training.
He lay down on the bed, his mind drifting aimlessly.
The first thing that came to his mind was the harsh words that Director Li had just said—that the guy said he had a connection with SHEEP and it was not appropriate for him to follow up any further, and that because he was not steady enough, he was not allowed to get involved in the affairs of Area A.
He was so angry that he focused all his energy on things related to SHEEP. Now, as he thinks back on it, he's starting to notice the second half of the sentence—"Area A"?
Yi Heye recalled that during the meeting, it was mentioned that the IP address of this jailbreak was located in Area A. He suddenly felt as if he had figured something out—
Fang Chunyang's incident was triggered by Area A. In the subsequent cases, from Lost Lamb to ISSAC and his scapegoats, the mastermind behind all the cases also pointed to Area A.
This wasn't something new that he discovered today; he and Pei Xiangjin had joked about it before, agreeing to go and push down that wall.
Yi Heye remembered that the guy had been preoccupied with the case recently, and his desire to break the deadlock was no less than his own. Moreover, he had a lot of information and resources that he couldn't get. If they could cooperate, Yi Heye could only make a profit.
More importantly, his workplace couldn't help him at this moment, and he couldn't go to Jian Yunxian anymore. He was completely alone and couldn't move an inch.
Although bringing up Pei Xiangjin made Yi Heye feel somewhat uncomfortable, especially given Pei Xiangjin's unpredictable and eccentric personality, he didn't know what kind of reaction he would get if he said that, but at this moment, Yi Heye really had no one else to turn to but Pei Xiangjin.
So he gritted his teeth and reluctantly dialed Pei Xiangjin's number.
"Hello?" The voice on the other end was numb, showing no signs of fatigue or emotion, as if life had turned it into a machine for answering the phone.
"Hello? Captain Pei?" Yi Heye said, "This is Yi Heye."
"What is it?" Pei Xiangjin asked calmly.
“Uh…” Yi Heye hesitated for a moment, “Let me make this clear from the start: if you disagree with my idea, you can hang up the phone, but you are not allowed to report me…”
Pei Xiangjin's patience had reached its limit: "What is it?"
"As I mentioned before..." Yi Heye took a deep breath and finally made up his mind, "...Do you want to take a look over the other side of the wall?"
Yi Heye gripped the microphone tightly, inexplicably becoming nervous.
For a long time, all that could be heard on the other end of the phone was the guy's breathing. Yi Heye quickly grew impatient and began to suspect that the other party was recording him to investigate and collect evidence, and then taking him to the border management court. He was just about to curse and tell the guy to go if he wanted to, and not to waste his time if he didn't, when Pei Xiangjin spoke first.
"Yes," Pei Xiangjin said.
Author's Note:
Director Li: It's a piece of cake to deal with a kid like you.
Chapter 148 (Number 148)
Yi Heye probably didn't expect that he would agree without saying a word. Now it was his turn to stare wide-eyed on the other end of the phone, not knowing what to say.
After a moment of silence, Pei Xiangjin spoke up: "It's not convenient to talk on the phone, when can we meet?"
Upon hearing this, Yi Heye finally realized that he had found a "partner," and couldn't help but smile: "Now."
Twenty minutes later, Yi Heye arrived at the well-known robot café in Zone B—it was here that Yi Heye had met Xiao Wang, the "talent scout" who discovered him. This was the most suitable place in Zone B to discuss both official and private topics.